Instructor: Venerable Khenpo Choying Dorje
Friday, May 20, 2011, 7pm-9pm
Location: Sakya Monastery shrine room
Suggested Contribution: $25 Public, $20 Members
Shamatha is the single-minded concentration in which one reaches the mind’s basic or natural state of bliss, clarity and awareness, free from mental dullness, agitation and wandering.
Vipassana is the penetrative insight into emptiness or the true nature of reality.
This course will focus on the four mindfulness practices (body, feelings, phenomena and mind) of Vipassana mediation from the Mahayana tradition.
Khenpo Choying Dorje was born in Tibet in 1972 and became a monk at the age of 12. He received his Khenpo degree in 2002, from the renown Buddhist college, Dzongsar Institute, in India. He was also given a special Khenpo degree by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2004.
Since 2010, Khenpo Choying Dorje has been the lead Dzongsar Institute teacher of HH JD Sakya’s eldest grandson, Dhungsey Avikritar Rinpoche. Currently, Khenpo Choying Dorje is on a one semester leave from that teaching position to participate as a visiting scholar at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. At UC Berekley, he is assisting on a Buddhist research project and also taking courses in leadership, neurobiology and English.